voetbalfestivaldefootball

Beursschouwburg shows many faces of football during the World Cup.

Thursday, May 24, 2018 —
Concerts by Belgian and international heroes. Football films. Handpicked matches. A football performance. All together, down to the final!

During the World Cup, Beursschouwburg wants to show many faces of football, so we are complementing our film, stage and concert programmes with curated football gems. We are screening historic, courageous confrontations, showing matches full of aesthetic value and – of course – let you a witness all the Belgian escapades.

For the film segment, in collaboration with Offscreen, we dive into the annals of football, from emotional headers to women being thrown out of a football stadium. For the concert section, we lend our stage to Belgian and international sounds. And we are presenting a Qatar-critical football performance.

During voetbalfestivaldefootball, our rooftop terrace will be a safe football temple for people with friends who like football.

The World Cup in Russia is hardly over and we are already looking ahead to the contentious World Cup 2022 in Qatar.

In 2022, Qatar will be hosting one of the biggest spectacles in the world: the FIFA World Cup. The fact that the organization of this football circus is in the hands of Qatar is making many a tongue wag. Together with the enormous stadiums in sandy settings, there are stories about mass exploitation of underpaid labourers, generally with migrant backgrounds.

Performance artist and footballer Ahilan Ratnamohan travelled to Qatar, Nepal and Sri Lanka, where he stood eye to eye with the realities required to build this World Cup dream. With the help of interviews with the workers, he looks behind the scenes of the picture that the Western media is holding up to us. He looked directly into the lives of those who have been doing the hard fieldwork. He discovered that – like in the beautiful game of football itself – reality often deceives us.

Mercenary is a collaboration between Sri Lankan-Australian artist Ahilan Ratnamohan and Mutamassik, an Egyptian-Italian-American musician. Ratnamohan once came to Europe to expand his career as a professional footballer (a career that never took off). He set out on another path and now operates from Antwerp as a theatre maker and the founder of the Star Boys Collective. In Mercenary, we see Ratnamohan’s characteristic football dance vocabulary, on this occasion complemented with Mutamassik’s punk jaw and pan-African electronica.

About Beursschouwburg

Beursschouwburg is an arts centre, situated in the heart of Brussels, that embraces a hybrid and multidisciplinary identity. It’s the perfect place for performance, film, music, exhibitions, debates, lectures, parties and a drink at beurscafé.

Beursschouwburg provides a platform for young and innovative artistes, thus it’s the place to discover the big names of tomorrow. Young talent, cross-fertilization and an opportunity to experiment are pivotal in the diverse programme which seamlessly coalesces with the generation 2.0.